Full Text: If it Had Not Been For These Thing, I Might Have Live Out My Life talk- ing [Talking] At Street Corners To Scourning [sic: Scorning] Men. I Might Have Die, Un- Marked [unmarked], Unknown A Failure. Now We Are Not A Failure. This Is Our Career And Our Triumph. Never In Our Life Could We Hope To Do Such Work For Tolerance, For Joostice [sic: Justice], For Man's Onderstanding [sic: Understanding] Of Man As Now We Do By Accident. Our Words - Our Lives - Our Pains Nothing! The Taking Of Our Lives - Lives Of A Good Shoemaker And A Poor Fish Peddler - All! That Last Moment Belongs To Us - That Agony Is Our Triumph. [same text in Italian] Ben Shahn

Acquisition Number: 2004-065

Notes: Ben Shahn created the original art featured in this poster to protest the execution of Bartolomeo Vanzetti and Nicolo Sacco who were electrocuted in 1927. The text is a statement Vanzetti made to a reporter shortly before their deaths.

Exhibition Annotation: SACCO AND VANZETTI
On April 15, 1920, a paymaster and a guard for a shoe company in South Braintree, Massachusetts, were shot and killed in a robbery; the murderers escaped with over $15,000. Nicola Sacco (1891-1927), a shoemaker, and Bartolemeo Vanzetti (1888-1927), a fish peddler were arrested and charged with the robbery and murder on May 5. A year later, their trial began in Dedham, Mass. Both men were anarchists; because of their opposition to the First World War, they went to Mexico to escape the draft. Because they were immigrants and radicals, they did not receive a fair trial. The Dedham jury deliberated only half a day before declaring them guilty. Despite an international campaign on their behalf, Sacco and Vanzetti, still maintaining their innocence, were executed Aug. 23, 1927.

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